The ultimate slide-show tool? Movies from your digicam photos? Check this one out!
By
Dave Etchells
(Monday, May 20, 2002 - 13:42 EDT)
Dave tries out an innovative program that lets you bring a little more life into your still images...
I came across this (Windows) application recently, and found it really interesting. There may be something like it out there, but this is the first of its kind that I've seen. It's Imagematics "Still Motion Creator," and it does just what its enigmatic name suggests - adds motion to still images. For those of you with animation background, think if it as a "virtual animation stand." For the rest of us, it's a way to create really interesting "movies" from our still images (whether from a digicam or scanner), panning and zooming across the photos. (Anyone who saw the Ken Burns documentary series on the Civil War will immediately recognize the creative technique.)
Movies aside though, it's also a really excellent tool for creating sophisticated slide shows, with varying times for each image, smooth fades between them, etc. Oh - and the files it creates are standard Flash format, so they're super compact, and you can load them directly onto web pages. Or, for smoother animation that avoids the limitations of Flash, you can output them as standard AVI video files. The best part? I've negotiated a $40 discount from the list price for IR readers, good through the end of the year (Imagematics current non-IR-reader promotion expires in about two weeks), so you can get "animated" for only $59.95! - And purchase using the IR discount code help support this site. Check it out!
(An added note - Note that the exclusive Imaging Resource discount code for this product is DD02XL. Once you visit through this link (repeated at the bottom of my review), it'll set a cookie in your browser so you'll see that code come up on their site anytime you visit over the next 60 days. - There's a minor glitch in their site though, that's may display the DD02XL code with text saying it's only valid through the end of this month. Don't worry, the code is in fact valid through the end of 2002!)
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